Red Sox GM Ben Cherington met with pitching coach candidate Brad Arnsberg before leaving the Meetings, tweets Sean McAdam of CSNNE.com. The meeting went well, but others will be interviewed. Arnsberg has served as pitching coach for the Blue Jays and Astros.

Cherington said he's felt all along that his pitching staff would be an "all-winter project."

Asked if the Sox considered being creative to try to fit Albert Pujols in, Cherington replied, "Not really."

Regarding the compensation owed by the Cubs for acquiring Theo Epstein, Cherington said, "Loosely, we've loosely defined a strategy of talking at some point in the near future. Yeah. We'll resolve it at some point I'm sure."

Why would the Red Sox even consider obtaining a shortstop when they have the reincarnate of Honus Wagner combined with Ozzie Smith in Jose Iglesias waiting in the wings? I thought he was some sort of legit sure-fire superstar based on the way Peter Gammons talks about him

Except for the fact that Hughes and Chamberlain actually performed at a extraordinarily high level in the minors, whereas Iglesias has never shown any ability to be anything more of than a glorified utility hitter. Can’t hit a lick and can only field.

Hughes and joba were both reasonably hyped and considering joba still is a great reliver their was nothing wrong with his hype. Tell me agian how homer bailey turned out? he was condisered a better prospect than hughes.

The guy is 21 and could arguably field better than 99% of the SS in the league. If he can hit for average with a tiny bit of power you got a player who looks very similar to Ozzie Smith. He was pretty useful.

I get that. My point is though Ozzie had some decent doubles power, average, and an amazing glove. The Sox have had Varitek starting until this past season which is an example of how we seem to be able to devote one lineup spot to someone with less offensive talents in exchange for other perks.

League average for SS was .258/.314/.370 this year, if Iglesias only hits at that level (which I don’t think is would be a problem for him) he would be a valuable player to have based on his superb defense. Remeber, he was only 21 and in AAA this year, and he hit at that level as a 20yo in AA last year.

I was under the impression that smith’s era was so weak in hitting in general so that smith was a league average hitter not just league average hitting ss. Sure Iglesis can be a very valuable player if he can progress which he should. Assurbel caberra had some sub par seasons in the minors and he turned out fine.

Defensively he is the second coming of a hybrid of Alex Gonzalez/Jesus/and song 2 by Blur. With a bat he has a lot to learn. At his best he will be Alex Gonzalez with better D, a respectable batting average, and more doubles power than HR power. At his worst he will be Better at D than Alex Gonzalez. Watching him play is insane.

Didn’t read here the NYY bid was only like 2-3m for Nakajima? If so.. Is John henry standing on the corner with his hat out looking for 25c?

““On the pitching front, we felt like, all along, this was going to be an all-winter project. Some of the moves will be very under the radar, and there may be some that are more on the radar. We have a much better idea of what’s out there and what it might take now than we did on Monday. …”

If that quote from Cherrington does not make all about for certain the rotation will break camp with (gulp) a Weiand type in it.. I don’t know what does… This is almost non imaginable they could do this.

You’re assuming that Joel Sherman of all people actually knows what he’s talking about.

“If that quote from Cherrington does not make all about for certain the rotation will break camp with (gulp) a Weiand type in it.. I don’t know what does…”

Him saying “we’re breaking camp with Weiland.” You’re reading waaaay too much into it. A likely more accurate translation is “I didn’t expect to walk away from the Winter Meetings with our pitching issues resolved. We’ve gotten a much better feel for the market, we’ll be looking into some obvious candidates (Probably guys like Kuroda) and some less obvious solutions (Non-tenders and trades).”

They’ve already spoken with the White Sox and A’s about pitching options and this is generally the earlier part of the offseason. The free agent market is honestly pretty thin this year, the Sox will probably spend the next month or two looking into potential trade targets.

someone’s username is missing a hole. It’s a bit strange to assume what someone random ss is thinking, coming over in a utility and playing well will probably get him more money next year than staying in japan

Nah, MLB did nothing when they tampered with the Dodgers-JD Drew situation, offering him a bigger contract so he would terminate his contract, even when the Dodgers proved they made illegal offers. Nor they did a thing when they knew that Epstein had knowledge and discussed PED usage by Éric Gagné and failed to notificate MLB, nor when Bosox players had ties and even failed antidoping tests but were not included in the Mitchell report, made by a boston red sox worker…

Even if the Nakajima comments were official ones, I hardly see how that would be tampering. GMs and Execs talk about how they would like to get their hands on different players all the time. It would be tampering if Ben Cherington went to Nakajima saying “We will sign you for X amount of money more than the Yankees and give you a starting job next season,” but I can’t see that happening.

the sox don’t have money to make a big splash this offseason. If you look at their payroll right now they already have about 170 million committed. That leaves them with around 8 million to fill 2 or 3 holes in the rotation not to mention rebuilding the bullpen which is in shambles now that Paps is gone. they are paying Lackey 15.5 million this year to sit on the bench and Dice-K just over 10 million to not play. Do you know what this team could do with that 25 million? Those contracts are the gifts that keep giving. Theo left this team in tatters.

I’m reasonably sure there are some human rights folks who may disagree.

The Yankees own the right to negotiate with him, no more, no less. While the Sherman article makes almost no sense, it’s well within Nakajima’s rights to decline the Yankees’ offer and seek a starting job elsewhere next year.

Agreed. I was afraid that the Sox were going to sign Wilson as a knee-jerk reaction. But he’s approached the offseason so far quietly and methodically. I’m also starting to believe that idea that Valentine was signed partly for his mouth. More attention is being paid to what Valentine says and does than almost anything else the Sox have done or will do.

I get what you are saying there, really.. The sox have an obvious hole however and it is SP. they have little at the top of the farm system to give up not named Middlebrooks to acquire it and are not going to give up him.

oswalt would have made sense, but they are going to:

1) Sit back and wait for someone else to sign him it appears or

2) Really do not want to go over the salary/luxury cap.

The team really does need at least 1 viable starter addition headed into 2012. they can patch together 1, they have done it before with a rehab project or budget guy, but odds are the team is not going to hit the lotto with a colon/Garcia type like the NYY did and if some think it’s an easy fix by just slamming bard/Aceves into the rotation…. Same thing applies… they still better find a top notch guy to replace them.

this team has more holes than any they have had in a few years and done less to fix anything at such a late stage.. Sure they just replaced the GM and manager, but Cherrington is not a newcomer, this guy has been around this team just as long and should darn well know what is going on already.

They also should have been working on that pitching coach. Pitchers 9in some cases) want to know who they are going to be working with, no coach? maybe no pitcher, it’s like this entire off season has been ring around the posie. took until a week before the winter meetings to hire the manager, coaches only now filled out (no pitching tho, the one that matters) the entire off season in many ways has just been something we called in the navy cluster….

There is my rant on what has happened.. last one..been wanting to get that off my chest…..

This guy’s hilarious. I love how people think they’re insulting Sox fans with their comments about them not making the post season last year. Tell me buddy, how’d your team do last off season? Unless your a Cardinals fans, keep up the yammering. It makes us Sox fans giggle at your ignorance.

“this team has more holes than any they have had in a few years and done less to fix anything at such a late stage.”

I remember a not too far back offseason where, at this point in the offseason, the Sox had one pitcher who kept his ERA under 4 (Their 39 year old “ace,” coming in at 3.97). Their number 2 was having heart palpatations. Our pretty alright second baseman was being replaced by some useless kid who hit like .180 to finish the season. We had no shortstop, again. Trot Nixon was likely being let go and our beloved DH, while coming off a great season, was having heart problems. Oh yeah, and our projected number three starter had freakin’ leukemia.

We won the WS eleven months later.

This offseason’s been rough, but people seem to forget how awful things looked in the beginning of the 2006 offseason. I’m not saying we’re going to win it all next year, guaranteed, but I’m reasonably sure the team will survive.

been down the road of losing.. that’s not it.. Them losing pennants, no biggie u get used to it.. When they just flat out stand pat like this for what can perceive as no obvious reason.. it has always grated me.

I kinda feel like he should have gotten out there and done something, particularly about the pitching; the problem is that there wasn’t anyone I could look at and say “that is who he needs to go after.”

It was (is) the perfect offseason to make some changes (several openings, and coming off of back-to-back 3rd place finishes), but there aren’t really any free agents that are great fits for what they need.

EDIT: After re-reading this I realize it kinda looks like I’m saying he should have done something despite there not being anything worth doing; that’s not really what I meant to say. Ideally they could have made some changes this offseason, but I’m okay with them not doing anything major because there isn’t anything major that’s worth doing.

I don’t think he was a particularly bad deal, I just don’t think he would have been a fit for Boston. They already have two pitchers making that kind of money who are on the wrong side of 30, so adding another would have been risky and in a couple of years they would have had three guys who were 34-35 and making ~$16M per year.

Having three mid thirties pitchers on your staff is always risky, and when you’re paying almost $50M for the three of them it could handcuff even a team like the Red Sox if one, or god forbid two, of them go down and need to be replaced.

I think he would have been great for next year, and probably the year after, I just think there’s too much risk involved in having three of those guys on your staff for the next 3-5 years (especially when one of them is Lackey…)

Keep thinking that. I know most of you sheep never think your terrible team leaks this garbage on a constant basis… It’s just someone in the media being a big meanie right? lmao hope you enjoy singing sweet caroline after every loss next year .